


Not to be

by CorsetJinx



Category: Final Fantasy XIII-2
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:52:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6183013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorsetJinx/pseuds/CorsetJinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle in the Void Beyond is not all it seems. He has his reasons for doing this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not to be

Between them, all around, were the echoes of Etro’s temple in Valhalla. The girl before him had not, could not have, seen such a place herself because she was still living – even her visions as the next Seeress _(how ironic, painful even to him, and Noel had no idea)_ could only have permitted a brief glance at the Realm of the Dead. The sister of the adversary he would face - he knew, knew that he would face Lightning, it was simply a matter of time – stood with her back to the imitation of Etro’s crystal throne.

In the Void Beyond, there was no light to give the crystal its dazzling radiance – no breeze that would have meandered through the halls of the Temple, lifting whatever it touched with the faintest of sighs before moving on. In spite of that, Serah Farron’s hair swayed as she managed to keep her balance, iridescent bow held in a tight grip.

She’d become proficient enough not to drop the weapon when under duress, he noted. Admirable, considering that the young woman had never been a warrior before this. Before the timeline changed so utterly and completely that Yeul, many Yeul’s, had simply collapsed even before the visions had ceased.

He pushed aside the pain with the edge of necessity he’d come to use as armor.

If he stopped Serah here, as he’d stopped Noel, then it wouldn’t matter in the end.

“You’ve grown more than I expected.” He allowed, shifting his grip on the hilt of Ragnarok, his stance at perfect readiness. The girl’s arrows were quick, but she was not half the challenge her sister would be. “Noel gave up much quicker than this.”

The statement brought a widening of her eyes, a fleeting spark of panic and concern in their depths, before they narrowed in anger instead.

“You two knew each other, didn’t you?! How could you do something like that to him? To Yeul?!”

She was grasping, pulling at straws of things she barely knew and understood in order to buy time. There was plenty of it, freely taken and given within the Void, but none of it would save her – not here, beyond even Lightning’s reach.

The accusation, however, was not without merit. He could give her that much.

“It is none of your concern.”

With that, he cut her bid short, swinging Ragnarok’s heft with the ease of long practice. Energy, magic, flowed along the organic blade and breached the space between them. The sword on its own was a ponderous thing – a fact she and Noel had exploited at various times, between coordinated strikes of steel and arrows, added to whatever creature they had active by mastering its crystal at the time.

Alone, however, with only scant moments between the arc of dark energy and the length of his blade, Serah would have to choose between surrendering ground she didn’t possess or dodging.

Agile enough on her own, she opted for a combination of the two.

The jump carried her just out of range of the blast – crystal fragments exploding into the windless air and hovering before succumbing to gravity’s lull that even the Void did not fully escape. When she had to meet his swing, hardly more than a second behind the blast with which she was familiar with by now, she made the mistake of trying to stave it off with the delicate-looking sword her bow transfigured into when necessary.

Against Ragnarok, and the momentum of his swing, his weight behind it, she couldn’t compete.

Neither could Noel, in the past or the ever-adapting future.

Metal screeched, sparks erupting at the harsh contact and she was swept aside – hurtling almost until the broken remains of a column abruptly ended her flight. From the sound, had it been under different circumstance and time, he might have winced in sympathy. Not fatal, but enough to bruise down to, if not crack, bone.

And had her weapon been regular steel rather than the sentient conundrum her sister had given, she might have faced worse than just a sudden flight and landing.

His footsteps, by comparison, were more like a whisper over the sullen gray stone.

Serah managed to lift herself, no small feat, enough to look at him – again with fear in her eyes but with the same determination he’d seen before – would see another time, if his plan failed.

Her question, when she spoke, sounded as though she had to push it out past lungs not fully recovered.

“You… really think… this is going to save… Yeul?”

In the Void, as in the Historia Crux and Valhalla, a moment might stretch for an infinity – impossible perhaps anywhere else where the definition of time was questionable at best. He took one such moment to regard her, one foot firmly planted on her fallen weapon so she could not be foolish and grab for it.

“It must.” His voice, perhaps softer than it had ever been when not addressing the Seeress, filled the space between them.

But then, _she_ would be Seeress, if he failed.

All the more reason not to allow even the remote possibility.

She jerked when Ragnarok’s misshapen edge met her flesh, a wound that could be considered minor – at least in the physical sense. What it sought, what he sought, lay beyond such barriers. Serah remained aloft, supported by his sword and a brief moment of weightlessness alone, before she slumped, arms and legs dangling as if all energy and life had been drained from her person.

He caught her, easily enough, free arm encircling her slight waist and keeping her from striking the ground. She was heavier than Yeul, taller than most of his Seeress’ usual incarnations – save the few that had lived to see their late teens.

Already she was fading, being whisked away into the dream he’d constructed to sap her will to continue this mad journey through time and space. He felt less and less of her weight and warmth as the moment drew on, but he watched with all the attention he would give to one of Yeul’s visions.

For all their differences, she deserved no less.

“I sometimes find the wish that I could hate you for all the trouble you cause, Serah Farron.” As before, his fingers traced the side of her cheek, flicking away errant locks of rosy pink. She was little more than a mirage now and even that faded a heartbeat later.

“But you, same as I, only seek happiness for those you love.”


End file.
